Married People and Religion

Last night N and I went to a Spanish wine bar to sample Spanish wine goodness. Turned out to be a really nifty joint - very laid-back with nice people working there, including Raul who was not from Spain but from Mexico and had a most beautiful accent. I have to admit I asked him to repeat a couple of the wine names because of that accent of his...anywho, Sexy Raul with the unfortunate weak handshake is not the point here. The point is married people. And then religion, but I'll get to that.

So N and I are in some typical N and E conversation when a married couple sits down in our vicinity. The way this place is set up encourages stranger interaction. And so we began interacting.

What I first noticed about them is what I see with a lot of married couples: complete disdain for each other. They sat together but not touching. When one spoke, the other didn't pay attention; if they did pay attention, the expression was of exasperation, boredom, or flat-out irritation. These two were much more interested in N and I. I started to wonder if they were swingers. I always wonder about swingers. I've never met any but I know they're out there.

As the night progressed and more wine was drunk, the two appeared to have a little less disdain for each other. Alcohol has a way of blunting these types of emotions, I suppose.

I'm a believer in marriage. I just think good ones are really rare. Of course married people probably think I'm on the chronically single, spinster side and shouldn't be judging. Who knows.

And then we started to somehow discuss religion. Married Woman said she believed in God, and that everyone needs to believe in something. I became irritated and said something about religion being a "yoke on mankind" and the sooner mankind broke free, the better. Until then, we were never going to evolve. Then I mentioned something about Bush's faith-based initiatives being paid for with my tax dollars, and how furious I am that he then yanked federal funding for stem-cell research because clumps of undifferentiated cells are babies with souls. Just trying to illustrate my point on religion, but oh well. Married Woman said there's nothing wrong with religion; it's the wacko people, the extremists, that distort it.

I don't believe that. I think it's religion, period. I believe it is antiquated thought. There is nothing about religion or supernatural happenings that science won't be able to explain in the future. What we don't understand has nothing to do with death, or worship, or Mount Olympus or the Ten Commandments or primitive people 4,000 years ago writing in caves hiding out from the Romans. The universal truths evident in certain religious books are simply truths that mankind was smart enough to figure out and eventually write down. Some things never change; wisdom is wisdom. But superstition and fear are superstition and fear...

Here's something from the late Carl Sagan in his book The Demon-Haunted World:

"Instead of acknowledging that in many areas we are ignorant, we have tended to say things like the Universe is permeated with the ineffable. A God of the Gaps is assigned responsibility for what we do not yet understand."

He also had this to say, which I love:

"...it's hard for me to see a more profound cosmic connection than the astonishing findings of modern nuclear astrophysics. Except for hydrogen, all the atoms that make each of us up - the iron in our blood, the calcium in our bones, the carbon in our brains - were manufactured in red giant stars thousands of light-years away in space and billions of years ago in time."

Now granted I'm not a reader of modern nuclear astrophysics journals, but something about what he said got to me.

Last night Married Woman said that all people need to believe in something, to be comforted in the very least. I can't be comforted by any god written about in any holy book available today; I have read the Bible, and that god does not comfort me in the slightest. If I were a believer, I would find the Bible downright terrifying. What does comfort me is the thought that I do belong in this universe. Sometimes I look around and wonder if mankind is supposed to be here. No other creature on this planet is so destructive. It's as if we were deposited here and have been waging wars and breaking things ever since.

I also question the need to be "comforted." That's what dogs are for.

Anyway, just thoughts spurred on by last night's conversations.